What the $38B swipe-fee settlement means for freelancers in 2026
A plain look at the $38 billion Visa and Mastercard swipe-fee settlement and what it actually changes for a solo freelancer who accepts card payments.
The Delivvo team· June 28, 2026 8 min read
If you take cards for your freelance work, the fee on every payment is one of the line items you can do the least about. You do not set it, you rarely see it broken out, and it quietly skims a slice off each invoice a client pays by card. That number is finally moving.
In June 2026, a federal judge gave preliminary approval to a $38 billion settlement between Visa, Mastercard, and the merchants who spent two decades suing them over those fees (Payments Dive). The networks first announced the revised deal on 10 November 2025 (Payments Dive). It does more than cut a check. It changes what you pay and what you are allowed to do at the point of sale.
A one-person studio counts here the same as a supermarket chain. The settlement class covers more than 12 million merchants, and you are one of them if you accept Visa or Mastercard (BNN Bloomberg). So this is worth ten minutes of your attention. Here is what the deal does, whether your real cost actually drops, the new rights it hands you, and what to keep an eye on before it is final.
What the settlement does, and when
The case goes back to 2005, when merchants accused Visa, Mastercard, and their banks of fixing the fees charged to process card payments (). An earlier $30 billion version was thrown out in June 2024 for being too small. The new one is bigger, and it comes with rule changes attached.
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn signed off on the revised deal in June 2026, calling it fair, reasonable, and adequate, and signaling that he would likely grant final approval later (Payments Dive). Four parts of it matter to you:
A cut to the combined average effective credit interchange rate of 0.1 percentage point, which is ten basis points, held for five years (Payments Dive).
A cap that keeps interchange on standard consumer credit cards at 1.25% for the full eight-year term of the agreement (Payments Dive).
A new right to add a surcharge on certain card payments and to steer customers toward cheaper ways to pay (Yahoo Finance).
A new right to stop accepting some high-cost premium and commercial cards, which ends the old honor all cards rule (Yahoo Finance).
This is preliminary approval, not the finish line. A notice period runs before a final fairness hearing, and the court is not expected to give final sign-off until late 2026 or early 2027 (Payments Dive).
Will your effective fee actually drop?
Short answer: a little, and maybe not much. In 2024, merchants paid a weighted average of about 2.35% on Visa and Mastercard transactions (Yahoo Finance). A ten basis point cut is 0.1 of a percentage point. Set against a 2.35% average, that trims roughly four percent off the fee. It is a haircut, not a reset.
Two details hold it back further. First, interchange is only one piece of what you actually pay. Your processor stacks its own markup and the card networks' assessment fees on top, and the settlement touches none of that. The headline cut lands on the interchange layer alone. Second, the 1.25% cap covers standard consumer cards. Premium rewards cards, the ones that earn your client points and miles, carry higher interchange and are not held to the same cap. If a big share of your clients pay with a rewards card, your blended rate may barely flinch.
An office workspace where a freelancer reviews invoices and card payment costs
There is a clock on it, too. The rate cut runs five years and the standard-card cap runs eight. After that, nothing in the deal stops the networks from raising fees again. The Merchants Payments Coalition called the reduction miniscule for that reason, arguing the networks stay free to push fees back up once the protections expire (PYMNTS).
If you have never sat down and added up what card acceptance really costs you, this is a good moment to do it. Our breakdown of the true cost of payment processing fees for freelancers walks through the layers, so you can see where a 0.1 point cut does and does not show up on your statement.
The new surcharge right, and its catch
The more interesting change is not the fee cut. It is permission. For years the honor all cards rule meant that if you took Visa at all, you took every Visa, and you could not add a fee to cover the cost. The settlement loosens that. Merchants now get broader rights to surcharge card payments and to point customers toward cheaper options (Yahoo Finance).
There are limits worth knowing before you switch it on. Card network rules cap a credit card surcharge at 3% for Visa, or your actual cost of acceptance, whichever is lower, and you have to give advance notice to the networks and post clear signage at checkout (PaymentCloud). For an online freelancer that means a visible line on the invoice or checkout page, never a surprise fee after the client has agreed to the price.
Then there is the client. A 3% line on a $4,000 invoice is $120, and some clients will just ask you to absorb it or pay another way. A surcharge can read as nickel and diming on a relationship you want to keep. It usually works better as a quiet nudge, where a card costs 3% more and a bank transfer costs nothing, than as a flat fee on everyone. If most of your income is repeat business, weigh the goodwill before you turn it on.
Your state may not let you surcharge at all
Here is the part the national headlines skip. Surcharging is allowed under the card network rules now, but your state can still ban it. As of 2025, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine prohibit credit card surcharges outright, and Texas has a ban that is currently unenforceable after a court ruling (PaymentCloud). Several other states permit surcharging but cap it below the network limit. Colorado holds it to 2%, and New York, New Jersey, and a handful of others tie it to your actual cost of acceptance (PaymentCloud).
So a freelancer in Hartford or Boston gets the network's permission and still cannot legally add the fee. There is a workaround that holds up almost everywhere: a cash or transfer discount. Instead of charging $103 for card and $100 for cash, which is a surcharge, you list the price as $103 and offer $100 to anyone who pays by bank transfer. The math is identical. The framing is what the law cares about. If you bill clients across state lines, check the rule for your own location, since that is generally what governs you.
A desk setup for tracking business expenses and processing fees
Declining the expensive cards is harder than it sounds
The settlement also lets merchants refuse specific high-cost categories, such as premium consumer and commercial credit cards, instead of being forced to take all of them (Payments Dive). On paper that is a real lever, because premium cards carry the fattest interchange.
In practice it is awkward for a solo operator. You usually do not know which card a client will use until they pay, and turning one down at that moment is a strange way to start or end a project. A retailer with a card terminal can program category rules into the hardware. A freelancer sending a payment link has far less control, and most of what is possible depends on what your gateway supports. For now, treat card declining as a tool built mainly for large merchants. Your more useful moves are picking a gateway with sane pricing and giving clients a cheaper non-card route. If you are still deciding how to take cards as a solo operator, our guide to accepting card payments as a freelancer with no company covers the setup, and our comparison of Stripe, PayPal, and regional gateways lays out who charges what.
What to watch before it is final
This is not settled law yet. A few things are worth tracking as it moves through the court:
Final approval. The court still has to hold a fairness hearing after the notice period, with final sign-off expected in late 2026 or early 2027 (Payments Dive). Terms can shift before then.
Opposition. Large merchant groups, including the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Convenience Stores, filed complaints against the deal, and appeals are possible even after approval (PYMNTS). A prior settlement already collapsed once.
Whether your processor passes it through. The cut lands on the interchange layer. Your provider decides whether that shows up on your statement or quietly pads its own margin instead. Read your fee schedule when the changes take effect.
The expiry. The cap and the cut both run on a timer. Supporters, including the economist Joseph Stiglitz, project hundreds of billions in merchant benefit through 2031 (BNN Bloomberg), but the protections are temporary, so plan as if fees can climb again later.
Where the relief actually lands for you
For a solo operator, the size of the win turns on one thing the settlement never addresses: who stands between you and your client's payment. If you take cards through a platform that skims its own cut on top of interchange, a 0.1 point reduction can disappear into that platform's margin before it ever reaches you. If the money runs straight through your own merchant account, any interchange relief is yours to keep.
This is the whole point of how Delivvo handles money. Your client pays through your own gateway, the funds land in your account, and the platform takes a 0% cut, so any swipe-fee relief from this settlement stays with you rather than a middleman. See how it works →
The settlement is a genuine change after twenty years of stalemate, though a modest one for a freelancer, and parts of it hinge on where you live and which card your client pulls out. Read your processor's fee schedule, check your state's surcharge rule, and treat the cap as something with an expiry date on it.
